While many advertisers ask P3Media to benchmark their media buying, it is more important to make sure your media strategy is right, because buying the wrong thing cheap is no bargain.

In this edition of P3 e-news Stephen Wright discusses how P3Media Strategy Benchmarking can provide advertisers and their agencies with a measure of their media strategy.

In this P3 e-news:
- benchmarking - the right strategy
- P3TV workshops - they're back
- benchmark your media strategy today
- looking for a speaker?

The right strategy is more important than the right price

Cheap media can be like discount beef for a Hindu or half price pork for a Hasidic Jew. There is no point saving a fortune on the buy if the product you are buying is wrong for the audience.

Yet many marketers can be so obsessed with how much they are paying for media they forget to consider if what they are buying is right.

Almost anyone can buy for a good price these days

With a collection of major buying groups, client specific media agreements and buying strategies depending on the state of the media market, most advertisers are in a position to buy cost effectively.

In fact, in four years of media buying benchmarking, the only time we had an advertiser who was buying above the market rate was because they had poor buying processes in place.

Based on this experience, at best, marketers need to ensure they have the appropriate processes in place to ensure they are buying media effectively.

Media options are expanding and changing rapidly

The issue of media strategy has become critical in the face of unprecedented audience fragmentation and the ever-increasing number of media options available to advertisers.

While much of the discussion is about the emergence of the digital platform and the many channel options this has provided, traditional media channels are embracing technology to expand the options they offer.

The increasing number of new channels and the corresponding decrease in the effectiveness of traditional media means that developing effective media strategies is becoming more complex.

Many advertisers are being left behind in the rapid change

The problem is that many advertisers and their media planning and buying providers are still working within a traditional paradigm. Focusing primarily on media cost overlooks the increasing importance of strategy in ensuring the right media is being selected.

Even at the lowest possible price, the wrong media selection is no bargain. Therefore it is important to focus on ensuring the right strategy process and resources are in place.

The right strategy process delivers maximum value

P3Media has developed a benchmarking process to ensure advertisers and their agencies have the most robust and effective media planning and strategy process.

The P3Media Strategy Benchmarking evaluates both the advertisers process in creating a platform from which the media strategy can be developed and then evaluates the media strategy process to ensure the agency is delivering the full potential of that platform.

Scores are provided for all elements of the strategic process providing absolute clarity on the quality of the media planning process undertaken.

To find out if your media strategy is delivering the right outcome, contact P3Media in Melbourne 03 9682 6800 or Sydney 02 9279 4997 or by email on people@p3.com.au

P3TV workshops - they're back

2007 P3TV Production Workshops for Advertisers are planned in the coming months, for Melbourne and Sydney.

These half day workshops fill fast and cover all aspects of the television production process from briefing your agency to approving a rough cut to despatching final dubs.

Booking forms will be posted soon, so make sure we have your correct postal address by emailing georgia@p3.com.au

Media strategy benchmarked

Wondering about the effectiveness of your media strategy process? Want to benchmark your media planning process?

Then talk to Stephen Wright about P3Media's Strategy Benchmarking.

Stephen has more than fifteen years experience in media strategy and is the senior media consultant and a director of P3Media.

Contact Stephen by email at stephen@p3.com.au

At a conference near you

What are the top 10 mistakes advertisers make?

Darren Woolley of P3 provides an entertaining and informative presentation of 30 - 45 minutes on 'The top mistakes advertisers make and how to avoid them', based on seven years of advising some of Australia's largest advertisers.

To organise to have Darren speak at your next conference, workshop or event email georgia@p3.com.au to check his availability.

P3 - helping people achieve commercial purpose through creative process

For years advertising agencies and their clients have demanded greater flexibility from traditional media. Why can't there be 20 second TV spots or 40 second radio spots? Why can't there be newspaper ads that weave through the editorial or outdoor advertising that interacts with the public? (Woops - yest we do have out-of-home that is interactive).

My friend Shawn Callahan from Anecdote has drawn my attention to this blog about "Newspaper adscapes".

The blog reports that "Adscapes' are the latest look in newspaper advertising. No longer are newspaper ads relegated to squares and rectangles. Today, advertisers can attract attention with a variety of shapes and sizes".

But more interesting are the comments regarding the intrusive nature of the format to the boring content within most newspaper ads.

Author: Darren Woolley

In B&T yesterday, they reported that "ANZ has pulled all its advertising from News Limited properties including print, online and pay TV provider Foxtel, in retaliation to a front page story printed by The Daily Telegraph and other News Limited titles yesterday."

It turns out that the bank maintains that the report is technically wrong as ANZ do not have call centers in India and it appears they made News Limited aware of htis prior to the story running.

It goes on to quote Ken Miller, marketing professor at UTS, who said "by pulling its ads from News Ltd properties the bank might be missing out on the rich media opportunities available through its newspapers, magazines and television stations."

But isn't the issue the power and effectiveness of front page PR (especially bad PR) has effectively negated the impact of the work the ANZ marketing team is trying to achieve in their advertising. Would it not be throwing good money after bad running advertising alongside and in the same media that has run a negative PR story. Wouldn't ANZ be better taking their ad spend on the News Limited titles and using this in PR campaign to "correct" the incorrect perceptions created by the News limited stories.

In our last newsletter we reviewed the power of PR in the marketing mix. Perhaps the ANZ team have read it. In it it talks about research studies conducted in the late 1990's in the US by AT&T's Public Relations research department to measure the interaction between news coverage and advertising concluded that news coverage can have a substantial impact on consumers, on a par with advertising.

They suggest that news coverage can substantially impact the investment a company makes in various forms of paid marketing communications and that expert management of media relations is critical to protect and leverage this investment.

Interestingly, the studies suggest:

* when there is 'normal' news coverage, news and advertising work together, and incremental advertising has a positive impact on attitudes

* in times of widespread and extremely positive news coverage, the incremental positive impact of advertising is much less than in normal times

* in times of widespread and extremely negative news coverage, incremental advertising does not have a positive incremental impact, and may even have a negative effect

* advertising can, and should in some circumstances, be 'turned up and down' according to the level of unpaid news coverage

Author: Darren Woolley

In attempts to measure and benchmark the effectiveness of their media planning and buying, many advertisers are using cost per thousand measurements. Some have even used this measure as the basis of their remuneration to their media agency. But how effective is this in determining media efficiency and effectiveness?

Defining the measure

As the name suggests CPM has two variables, cost and audience delivery. Cost is affected by supply and demand, with lower rating and less popular programs (and possible lesser quality environments) being offered at a lower cost by the networks.

Audience delivery is a measure of average viewing levels in thousands. Therefore, it is possible to reach an audience using lower cost and possibly lower quality programs to achieve a lower cost per thousand. But at what cost to the campaign?

Reach and frequency

In this discussion, many advertisers say they have strict reach and frequency objectives to be achieved, including both net or 1+ reach goals and so-called 'effective reach' goals such as 3+, 4+, etc..

But even within these parameters a buy can be planned that delivers this audience reach and frequency but reduces the CPM by up to 50% through the selection of lower cost programs. Off peak and low rating programs can be used to build reach but maintain low CPM by avoiding the premium rates associated with popular programs.

The problem is that this strategy will correspondingly increase your 10+ reach and therefore represents significant media wastage.

CPM based remuneration

Obviously if you are remunerating your media agency on CPM performance there is a huge incentive for them to use this strategy. So while the CPM measure was implemented to encourage greater efficiencies, it ends up providing the agency with the incentive to increase media wastage.

Rather than allowing the agency to provide you with the best possible media solution for your advertising, it provides a contrived and largely flawed measure of media efficiency and effectiveness.

Measuring media efficiency

While some have promoted CPM as a panacea for measuring media efficiency, it provides more limitations to achieving the goal than benefits. Instead, media efficiency should be measured against the media objectives and the market trends.

P3Media, with many years experience and the latest market intelligence can assist in providing process to guarantee the delivery of more effective media planning and buying more cost efficiently.

Author: Darren Woolley

Earlier this month I lead a team in the Connect Network debate. Arguing in defence of the future of mainstream advertising we were narrowly beaten on the night, but now you can hear the summing up arguements and then have your say.

Check it out. It was great fun.

Author: Darren Woolley